Курбанът – реактуализация на родовата памет („Аврамовата жертва” в акционален план – възприятия и интерпретации в съвременността)
The Kurban – Re-actualization of Generic Memory (“Abraham’s Sacrifice” in an Actional Plan – Perceptions and Interpretations in the Present)

Summary/Abstract: The article is an attempt to reveal what is the relevant, the significant in the ritual (feast) of kurban for the people, who perform it nowadays. The interest is directed towards the logic/logics of communication, which are displayed, towards the social relations, which are established, towards “speaking” about the ritual, viewed as verbal interpretation, not towards “speaking” through the ritual as reconstruction of archetypes. The desire is to avoid isolating the symbolic languages and the ritual “scripts” from the situation, in which they are inscribed. The analysis is based on observations on the ritual practice and the festivities, as well as on verbal descriptions – narratives of these phenomena, recorded among Bulgarians – East-Orthodox Christians, Muslims, and Catholics. The narratives of kin’s reunions and of the inter-settlement kurban clearly delineate the directions and regions of migration streams. The feast stands out as a sphere, within which the relation to the kin and to the settlement “by blood” is re-constructed. In the verbal descriptions the accent is on the social integrity of the community of blood and social relationships during the kurban or the kin’s re-union. The participation in the kurban gives a possibility for affirmation, duplication and overlapping of relationships by “blood” and by “territory”. As far as the sacrifice uses the language of the religious, the “binding” by blood and by territory uses the languages of the corresponding confessions as well. The home-place appears in a doubled image according to the origin of the kin and according to the social activity. This ambiguity of the ritual is made clear in several consecutive generations and comprises a broad blood-relationship perimeter. The relation to the “home-place” is manifest by overcoming the spatial remoteness between the native settlement and the place of residence. The return to the settlement is a “sign” for overlapping of spaces – the space of kin’s origin and the space of social activity, through the festive register and within a certain segment of time. As a verbal interpretation this distinction is overcome in life stories and in interiorized generic memories.

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